


As Green As Envy

by koldtblod



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First War, Gen, Halloween, Ok so the Lestrange's never knew about the prophecy but, Therefore I am taking liberties and assuming he's told them somewhere along the way, Word on the street is that Lucius did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-08 08:30:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21232850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koldtblod/pseuds/koldtblod
Summary: Bellatrix and Narcissa are waiting in, on the night of 31 October, 1981, for the sure return of their Lord. Narcissa worries about the Aurors, and Bellatrix can't stand her lack of belief.





	As Green As Envy

**Author's Note:**

> This has literally been sat unfinished in my drafts for five years. A trip to the Warner Bros Studio Tour this weekend sorted me out at long last. Thanks, Lauren, again for beta-ing this whilst I was at work.  
  


"Aren't you scared, Bella," Narcissa asked from across the room, "for if he doesn't succeed?"

She sat by the fireplace, low shadows flickering across her face as she stared into the hearth and hugged her baby boy close to her chest.

By the window, Bellatrix watched the sky darken outside. Late Autumn storm clouds were beginning to roll in above the estate, bringing with them a cold wind that whipped up the leaves and dragged in the scent of seasonal decay. The world was of deep grey and dark orange, and Bellatrix clutched the edge of the curtains as she waited for news of her master.

They were both waiting.

"There's nothing to be scared of," she said quietly. "He'll be back again by the morning."

"You don't know that," Narcissa told her. "They'll come after you…"

"It's just a baby."

"But you don't know– "

"I know enough."

There was an infant – that was for sure – younger than Bella's nephew and born to a Mudblood mother, but maddeningly of great concern to the Dark Lord. The prophecy had said it was so – that this Halfblood infant, born as the seventh month dies, was able to defeat him. Ludicrous, of course, but that was it. Bellatrix turned from the window, studying her younger sister and nephew in the armchair, and frowning when Narcissa looked up to catch her eye.

"Aren't you scared?" Narcissa asked again. 

"Oh, Cissy!" Bellatrix strode towards her, snarling and twisting her hands into the front of her dress in agitation. "What on earth do you think is so special about that stupid child?"

"There's nothing–"

"Then stop talking about it!"

"But they'll have the Aurors on patrol," Narcissa said quickly. "They're not fools, Bella! And you know, as well as I do, the precautions that they're taking – the extra security – and get around them we may have done so far but it doesn't mean – it doesn't ensure –"

"The Dark Lord," Bellatrix said dangerously, stooping low over the armchair, "was given the exact whereabouts of this boy. I don't think, given the power he holds, that he'll have any problems with disposing of the wretched thing – do you?"

Narcissa’s mouth twisted beneath the scrutiny. Her arms tightened around the bundle at her chest as the baby within started to squirm and after a moment she dropped her gaze. Bellatrix, straightening up, registered the note of pity in her sister's voice when she spoke again.

"I suppose not..."

She peered down at the face of her son in the blankets, and tickled her fingers against his soft, round cheek.

"As you said, it's only a baby."

Bellatrix scoffed. "You're unbelievable."

From out on the porch, one of the dogs started to bark. Both women looked quickly towards the doorway. Muffled voices moved forwards into the hallway as the front door opened – Lucius' dulcet tones and the sound of his cane on the wooden floorboards, and Rodolphus' growl and leather boots on the rug – and then promptly slammed behind them.

Narcissa glanced over, as if hoping that her sister would offer some warmer words, but Bellatrix merely glared and turned to stare into the fireplace with gritted teeth. The wind had begun its low howl around the neck of the chimney and outside, the shutters were beginning to rattle against the windows. It wasn't long before the baby's small, choked cries rose to echo alongside.

He was, Bellatrix reasoned, surely the cause of all this.

She knew in truth where her sister's misplaced compassion had come from, although it hadn't stopped her anger and still burned dimly in the pit of her stomach. She knew that ultimately, at the heart of it all, the Malfoys had been very proud on the day that little boy was born.

It seemed only too inconvenient that Narcissa couldn't separate the two children.

She had been late to the party, or so their mother said, struggling to fall pregnant and then struggling to stay. She and Lucius had watched slowly as the families around them birthed handsome, healthy children, and yet it was only after some years of marriage that Narcissa finally bore her own – an heir, at long last, in the early June of 1980. Bellatrix remembered the celebrations, the parties, the feasts…

And Cissa had wanted to call him Draco.

"It's a boy!" Lucius had boastfully exclaimed, as he came rushing out of the master bedroom on that day, hair flying, shirt displaced. He had his sleeves rolled up to the elbow and blood drying on his chest as the evidence of his involvement. He had grabbed her arms and kissed her cheek, and bounded off down the stairs, shouting the same for anyone who could hear: "It's a boy, I have a boy!" 

Male heirs were worth three of any girl.

Narcissa, of course, had been radiant despite it all. Bellatrix had embraced her as she lay exhausted in bed, feeling the clammy skin, the sweat that matted her hair and saw the bags beneath her eyes and smelt the blood, still hanging in the air, and yet… somehow, despite all, Narcissa had been glowing.

"Bella," she had whispered, and her voice was hoarse and drained. Still, she had smiled. She proffered the swath of fresh, clean blankets forward for Bellatrix and the hour-old prune-like face of her first son was nestled in the middle, small and innocent and unassuming.

There was something in her sister's eyes then, Bella had noted, that she had never seen in her own reflection. Perhaps this was how women were supposed to be: maternal and gentle. Narcissa glowed and Lucius, in the room below, could be heard already pouring brandy ad hoc into their finest glasses, gathering respective parents and cheering.

“He’ll make a fine man, Cissy,” Bellatrix had told her, and kissed her forehead sweetly. 

Perhaps she should have said something more endearing – how beautiful, or how wonderful! But Bellatrix didn’t know how to respond with anything like that.

Part of her, for years growing up, had wished that she did.

Even then the small boy bore the telltale tuft of white-blond hair, so distinctively Malfoy that there could be no mistaking as to whose child he was. Before the war, Bellatrix had sometimes wondered if she would have birthed children and wooed a man like Lucius if she were just a little more like her sister. But Bellatrix had always been brazen. And Narcissa, whilst once as accustomed to playing nasty tricks as her sister, had always still been softer, more compassionate, and exhibited a range of tender emotions that were so very outside of Bellatrix's comprehension.

The baby had been born, the war had intensified, and both sisters had been thrown towards opposite ends of the spectrum.

Narcissa, for all of her charms, was no one to envy today.

Although she couldn’t see it, hidden beneath the sleeve of her robe, Bellatrix glanced towards the brand that was scalded onto her forearm and flexed her wrist experimentally. Now there wasn't a person alive – nor dead – with whom Bellatrix would rather switch lives.

"That child," she said eventually, "is our greatest threat. You need to stop involving yourself, and your silly emotions, in all of this, Cissy – and quickly, before the Dark Lord returns. There's not a witch or wizard to be left standing who shows pity for that creature."

Narcissa rocked her son more urgently in her arms. Her hair, where once thick and lustrous, was hanging limply over her face and concealed the majority of her expression. For Bellatrix, who had always delighted in the frenzy of battle, the upheaval that the war had brought had been welcomed and delightful. But Narcissa, it seemed, had been dealt a harder hand and she seemed to need a little longer to compose herself before finally raising her head.

"I don't care about the child," she explained quietly. Her voice was clipped as if struggling to keep it steady. "I know what you think and – I don't, not about him, nor his damned parents – but _you_!" She met Bellatrix's gaze with sincerity. "They don't conjure prophecies from thin air, Bella. I know the Aurors will come for you, if the Dark Lord falls tonight."

"You have such little faith," Bellatrix told her.

The words coming from her sister's lips twisted in her gut and made her feel sick. It was treachery, she thought, to speak of their Lord in this way – overpowered by Aurors, or children, as if he had no stature nor power above them at all.

Little Draco's cries still pressed in against her ears, growing louder. The fire crackled; the wind howled. Bellatrix's fingers were inching for her wand. She could feel the flush of anger creeping up against her collar, and every sound set her teeth on edge.

"Can't you shut him up?" she snapped.

Narcissa recoiled further into the chair.

"He's just unhappy!" she exclaimed, trying to quiet her son's now flailing arms. "He knows that something isn't right."

"One more thing, Narcissa, and I swear it –"

"Bellatrix!"

The shout came the doorway. Bellatrix jumped and withdrew her hand from her robes, where it had clenched around the end of her wand. The bang of the door against the wall only served to set the baby's crying off even louder, but the look on Rodolphus' face as he stood there was enough to drive all else from Bellatrix's mind.

"Something's happened," she said.

"I don't know," he panted, "but come quickly, look at my mark – Lucius' too! – is yours still the same?" 

Her pride shelved, Bellatrix rushed forwards. She grasped her husband's bare forearm as he held it out, and her breath caught in her throat to see the brand several shades lighter, writhing and twisting against his skin. She tugged up her own sleeve and revealed the same horror there. Then, behind them, Lucius was barging into the room.

"What's happening?" Narcissa cried, overwrought by the onset of their panic.

"Cissy, go to your parents," Lucius told her. There was none of the usual warmth he reserved in his voice for only her.

"What?"

"Take Draco, go to your parents – take some clothes – please, trust me!"

All four of them took to shouting above the baby's wails.

"What does it mean?" Bellatrix hissed.

Rodolphus seemed helpless. "Dolohov's sent an owl – I don't know – the Potters are dead, but –"

"Where is your brother?"

"Home – I need to fetch him –"

Lucius kissed his wife, and then his child, and stormed back towards Bellatrix and Rodolphus with a steely look on his face.

"I'll find Macnair!" he said and blustered past them.

Narcissa was sobbing in his wake.

“We have to fight,” Bellatrix insisted.

It did not matter where, or how, but they must find their Lord. Rodolphus nodded, and Bellatrix spared only a fleeting glance towards her sister, now standing in front of the armchair with wide, frightened eyes.

“Go,” she said. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Bella...”

Bellatrix ignored her.

“They'll be watching the Floo networks, we'll go on foot–"

"We'll find Rabastan–"

"And Barty, we'll look for Barty!"

They marched out into the wild weather, into the dark of the night, with cloaks billowing around their legs as the first crack of thunder split the sky above them. Bellatrix held her head high, and Rodolphus' chin was set like stone. Only morning light would reveal the headlines, splashed over the newspapers and cold rage would spur Bellatrix onwards, half-crazed with fury, and accompanied by the shouts and curses of her husband. When Rodolphus raised the suggestion for their next course of action, Bellatrix could only cackle at the insanity.

They'd find someone to answer for the disappearance of their Lord; they'd find whoever was responsible and make them pay. The Longbottoms, the Lestranges decided, as the world they'd known crashed down around them, would do just splendidly to exert their vengeance.

**Author's Note:**

> _'And you cannot understand fear if you don’t understand life. You have to understand the jealousy that you have, the envy - envy and jealousy which are merely indications of fear.' \- J Krishnamurti The Awakening on Intelligence Page 201_


End file.
